“How do you know Roland is even at his church?” I asked, frowning. “He could be anywhere. Unless he’s not doing what I told him to do.”
Fabrizio chuckled and pointed up at the sky. “Dark clouds mean Roland is home. Lets him walk around in the day.”
My eyes widened in disbelief as I glanced up at the dark clouds hovering over the city. “That’s…amazing. Where the hell did he come up with that?”
Fabrizio chuckled. “Frozen. That snowman guy.”
I burst out laughing. “Olaf’s cloud gave Roland the idea to shield the sun in Kansas City?” I laughed. “I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed for him.”
“I’ve given him hell for it,” he agreed with a belly chuckle, “but you’re welcome to kick a man while he’s down.”
“I don’t mind walking,” I said, taking a deep breath of humid air. “I need to stay in shape, and walking is good for the heart. Something you should start thinking about, Meatball,” I said, eyeing his permanent gut. “You’re sporting a dad bod.” Fabrizio was big man strong—not the chiseled Viking type, but those hairy bear types who were just big all around.
He grunted. “I prefer father figure.” He pointedly glanced down at my hips. “But maybe we should keep walking. It does look like you’re smuggling two sacks of loose nickels in those pants.” Before I could even squawk at him, he was hooting and laughing, running away from me towards the alley at full speed. “That was for calling me fat!” he crowed, rounding the corner of an alley ahead of me.
I found myself laughing as I ran after him. My boots began to tingle and I skidded to a halt in time to see Fabrizio fly back out of the alley as if struck by a semi-truck. He slammed into a utility pole with a meaty grunt and a low chiming sound as the whole thing wobbled. He crumpled to the pavement, shaking his head blearily, obviously more surprised than he was injured.
“Look out, Fabrizio. Demon,” I told him, slurping at my drink.
23
He blinked up at me, somehow managing to glare. “Thanks. What would I do without you?”
I nodded self-importantly and sauntered up to the alley, peering into the dark shadows cast by the tall buildings and the charcoal sky. “What flavor of asshole am I looking at?” I asked. “You all look the same to me.”
“That was rude,” Fabrizio grumbled, rising to his feet and shaking his head from left to right to loosen up his muscles. It sounded like a string of fireworks each time.
The darkness called back. “Where is he?” it rasped. Fabrizio shot me a curious look but I pretended not to notice.
“I don’t talk to strangers. Old habits,” I said, slurping more of my coffee. “Give me your name.”
“Your flesh will taste delightful when I roast it over the pits of Hell,” the demon snarled, still huddling in the darkness somewhere.
“I have it on good authority that my flesh is quite fatty and tough.” I scanned the shadows, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. I could see the far end of the alley, so it wasn’t a particularly large demon or it would have blocked my view. “Come on out, pal.”
“Where is Pride?” he snarled in a low, deep, baritone.
Fabrizio stepped up beside me. He gave me a flat, meaningful glare for not sharing that little nugget of information. The First Shepherd felt privy to silly things like one of his friends apparently knowing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I shrugged. “You weren’t being very forthcoming yourself.” I let out an annoyed breath. “If that upset you, this next part is going to blow your mind,” I told him. I cleared my throat and faced the alley. “I already told Legion I don’t know where any of the Sins are. I even spoke to Lust earlier, so you guys really need to work on your communication skills.”
The demon snarled and I heard a splash. My eyes locked onto the sound and I prepared for a fight. I saw a scurrying creature skitter across the ground and Fabrizio unleashed a ball of fire. The flames engulfed it in less than a second. The creature screamed as it smoldered. I winced. “That was a rat.”
“Demon guy?” Fabrizio called, his voice echoing in the alley. No one replied and we shared a long look at each other.
I eyed the smoking remains and grunted. “That little thing knocked you into the lamp post?” I asked, frowning.
Fabrizio shook his head, storming into the alley to inspect the remains. “It was much bigger,” he said, defensively.
I stepped up beside him and stared down. “That’s not a rat. That’s a raccoon.” Fabrizio put his hands on his hips, shaking his head with a frown. “You got your ass kicked by a trash panda demon,” I said, grinning.
“Well, I killed it,” he argued, “so, I win.”
The smoking carcass suddenly began to twitch and spasm, rising up on its hind legs. We both leapt back with a hiss of surprise. “Um…what the hell is it doing?” I asked. The still burning raccoon stretched and groaned, tearing through its smoking charred skin to reveal a larger, stronger demon within. I gagged as the alley was suddenly pregnant with the smell of burning eggs, thick enough to chew on. I dumped my coffee out on the fiery demon and it hissed and sizzled in agony.
And, like my coffee had been fertilizer, it doubled in size again—this time tearing out of its brand-new flesh. It looked like raw meat giving birth to raw meat, and the cloying stench of sulfur was beginning to make my eyes water.
“That is disgusting,” Fabrizio muttered, and then he drop-kicked it into the depths of the alley. It landed in an oily puddle and almost instantly exploded to ten times its previous size, turning into a spider-like creature with long, spiny, segmented legs. “It seems,” Fabrizio said, “that liquid makes it grow larger.”
“Mogwais,” I murmured, shaking my head. “Don’t feed them after midnight and don’t get them wet. Now we have a gremlin to deal with.” I assessed the demon. “A spider gremlin. Wasn’t that in one of the movies, too?”
Fabrizio shrugged. “Pretend I said something clever because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I sighed, shaking my head in disappointment. I threw a ball of fire at the spider demon, cringing as it let out an ear-piercing scream that sounded like metal scraping metal. The fire washed over its back and the demon stumbled into a pile of foul-smelling, leaking trash bags pressed against the brick wall. It drove its head into the pile and began gobbling it down like a buffet challenge. Fabrizio cursed under his breath as we watched the meal instantly add bulk to the creature. It once again erupted out of its own chitinous exoskeleton to reveal a huge, thorned, sickly yellow spider that stood taller than our heads. It reared up on its hairy, chitinous back legs, clicking its mandibles and front feet as if challenging us to a boxing match. “It’s all mine!” the demon screamed, slamming back down to all eights to gobble up more trash bags in a feeding frenzy.
“This is so fucked up,” I murmured. I spotted several more puddles and cringed. “We can’t let it get any bigger,” I said. “I’ll handle the water; you keep it busy.”
Without waiting for his agreement, I began hurling blasts of magic at the ground, freezing the puddles on contact and sucking the heat out of the air and casting it up into the gloomy sky above. The alley turned into a skating rink and the spider began slipping and sliding as it tried to maintain its footing. Fabrizio began hurling blasts of liquid fire at its head. The fire splashed over the spider-like body, causing the demon’s skin to burn and bubble up as it emitted horrendous screams that would definitely draw attention soon. Because he was the First Shepherd and a veritable powerhouse with his magic, Fabrizio simultaneously threw blades of air at its legs. Each strike of air impacted with the force and sound of a car accident, the legs crunching and the demon squealing like Fabrizio was hungry for dinner and cracking open crab legs to get to the meat within. Unfortunately, each shattered appendage only caused a thicker, more lethal version of the sickly yellow appendage to emerge from within, increasing the number of spikes and defensive scales covering the thicker new muscle mass. Each blow only made it stronger and more powerf
ul.
It reminded me of the infamous Greek Hydra.
“It’s the reverse matryoshka spider of doom,” I shouted. “Those little Russian dolls that keep revealing a smaller, cuter version within,” I explained. Fabrizio grunted, alternating back to fire. The flames blasted over the bright yellow spider’s fuzzy body and face like liquid napalm, crackling and sizzling and burning. The demon now sported massive mandibles large enough to bite me in half at the waist, and they oozed a green slime that was likely venomous. Thankfully, the fire seemed to be a way to hurt it without letting it grow larger. The smell of burned spider fuzz added to the sulfurous stench and the occasional whiff of urine from the alley’s overnight homeless population, creating a perfume that made me want to actually vomit.
The yellow spider demon lunged at me, clacking its wicked mandibles together as the rest of its body burned. I flung up a wall of fire right in front of its eyes and then rolled underneath, calling up my silver claws. I felt my mouth suddenly salivate and that same heady sensation of an alcoholic buzz rolled over me as my claws sliced deep into the spider’s abdomen. The spider demon’s legs buckled and its body convulsed as it let out a scream that set off nearby car alarms. I kept my fist high as I crouch-shuffled, ripping a deeper gash as the creature continued to writhe and scream, pounding its feet into the slippery, icy ground. Warm gunk and guts began pouring over my hand and down my back, plastering my hair to my skull, and smelling like hot, raw sewage. I risked a look back to see a hazy heat emanating from my silver claws, leaving a long, gaping wound that glowed and steamed at the edges. I spotted a dumpster to my right and I decided to take a gamble.
I yanked my hand out from his stomach and called up claws from my other fist. Then I spun and sliced at the creature’s legs, severing two of the four that were closest to the dumpster. The demon began to tilt and fall, the last two legs on that side skittering madly on the ice. As it began to tip, I called up my angelic gauntlets and wings, giving the spider an uppercut to the chest that sent it flipping into the dumpster.
“Close the lid!” I shouted at Fabrizio. He slammed it closed with a gust of air and immediately began looping ropes of magic around and around the dumpster. I did the same, crisscrossing my ropes over his to form a web that would be harder to tear through. “Now heat up the metal,” I screamed, “but don’t blast a hole through it. We’re having some Kansas City barbecue!” I knelt down and pressed my angelic gauntlets against the front of the dumpster, calling up as much heat as I could in an effort to transfer it into the dumpster and turn it into an oven. I watched as the metal began to glow in a widening circle radiating outward from my fiery gauntlets.
Fabrizio cackled as he followed suit and pressed his now glowing hands against the side of the dumpster. The demon squealed and screamed from within his make-shift oven as the metal began to smoke and burn, causing the paint to peel away as the steel went from a deep red to a bright orange. I felt the goop and spider guts covering my face harden and tighten, drying onto my skin like a beauty mask. I called up a shield to protect myself from the immense heat.
The spider demon pounded at the walls and tore through the melting plastic dumpster lid, only to come into contact with our ropes of power. It punched and pounded at the inside walls of the dumpster but immediately squealed upon contact, burned by the glowing red metal that was now its prison cell.
Thick clouds of noxious black smoke rose up from the burning dumpster, adding to the already unbearable smells filling the alley. Thankfully, the heat wasn’t burning my hands, but that was probably because of my angelic gauntlets.
I glanced at Fabrizio in sudden alarm, and I was just in time to see his eyes flutter and then roll into the back of his head before he toppled onto his side. His hands were smoking and burned to the bone in several places. I let out a horrified gasp at his ruined hands. He’d shielded himself from the indirect heat, but he’d had no way to protect himself from the direct contact of his hands on the dumpster. He had to have known the risks. Yet…he’d still done it.
Unfortunately, as Fabrizio passed out, so did his half of the magic ropes keeping the demon trapped.
24
The weakened metal dumpster rapidly cooled without Fabrizio’s assistance. In my distraction, the spider frantically grabbed my ropes and tore them apart, kicking out at the walls to explode out of the dumpster with a hissing shriek. I only just managed to call up my elemental wings, sheltering Fabrizio and myself from the ricocheting, red-hot shrapnel.
Unable to see from behind my shield, I heard the demon roar and I felt it kick my wings with one of its legs, sending me flying. I struck the brick wall with a shattering sound, my wings taking the brunt of the force, causing flecks of what looked like frozen glass to fall to the ground with me in a tinkling downpour. I rose up on all fours and checked over my shoulder to see that my wings were not destroyed despite the horribly loud shattering sound. The vaporous cloud of ice chips, feathers, and raw power had simply reorganized, absorbing the blow and shedding unnecessary crystals.
I looked up to see the yellow spider snatch Fabrizio by one leg and hoist him high in the air with a rattling hiss. The demon rose up on its back legs, swinging Fabrizio back and forth like a pendulum. The long gash I’d torn into its abdomen was a bubbling, bright orange, smoking eyesore, but it wasn’t fatal. Damn. “I will devour him and make him a part of me. Hit me and you will be hurting him. We are one. Tell me where to find Lord Pride and Lord Wrath or I will eat this sheep slowly, starting at the limbs so he feels every rip and tear.”
“Before you eat him, do you mind telling me who you work for? Is it Legion or did one of the Sins send you? Because I’ve given it some serious thought, and I think we could be friends, sulfur widow.”
The giant spider crashed down to all five remaining legs, still holding the unconscious First Shepherd in one claw and giving me a chance to see the rest of the damage we had inflicted. The demon was a smoking, smoldering ruin from its time in the dumpster. Two of its eyes had burst open from the heat and now oozed bright orange goop down its face. I knew that if it consumed Fabrizio, it would emerge healed, larger, and even stronger than before. Fabrizio was no joke in the magic muscle department. If bags of trash had made the demon this much bigger than a trash panda, what would the power of the First Shepherd do to it?
That heady buzz of adrenaline suddenly surged through my veins like liquid ice and I heard my wings quivering with raw power as my gauntlets crackled against the filthy ground. I felt my fangs snap out and my vision tunnel in on the demon, everything else in my peripheral seeming to darken and fade away. I sunk my silver claws into the concrete and pointed my ass in the air like I was on the starting blocks for a track meet, waiting for the gunshot.
Except I didn’t wait for a gunshot. I tore forward, ripping through the concrete with my claws in an attempt to go faster. I took two steps before subconsciously flapping my wings in a powerful sweep that launched me a dozen feet up into the air. My rapid and unexpected change in elevation caught the demon so off guard that it dropped Fabrizio to the ground. Meatball went splat into the gooey ickiness of liquified, orange spider eyeballs that had pooled below.
The spider lunged forward, snapping its giant mandibles at my face. Instead of shielding myself, I grabbed each pincher with my angelic gauntlets. An uncomfortable vibration rocked up my arms at the direct contact of Heavenly gauntlets and Hellish snaggle-teeth. The strange force didn’t repel my grip like the wrong ends of two magnets touching, but it was extremely uncomfortable.
I realized I was laughing, baring my fangs as I stared at my reflection in its six remaining eyes. What I saw should have given me pause—a white-haired demon with glowing white eyes, covered in dried orange gore, and wearing oversized gauntlets made of crackling blue light. My eyes shone like fire and orange slime coated my face in surprisingly artistic sworls.
But that demonic angel was laughing, and her teeth were gleaming silver vampire fangs.
I heaved with my
angelic gauntlets, throwing my arms wide with a vicious roar that ripped at my vocal chords. My gauntlets blazed as I ripped the spider demon’s head in half as easily as if I were opening a set of double doors onto a sunny veranda for some cold iced tea on a hot summer day. Orange gore splattered all over me like an explosion of paint.
The demon’s terrified eyes went dull as the force of my pull sent me crashing right into the now-open skull of the demon—feet-first, thankfully—straight into its bright orange brain. Of course, my wings chose that moment to wink out of existence as my power high suddenly fled my body in a rush. The demon collapsed, and I rode the inside of the skull down to the ground, tumbling around on spin cycle with the load of wet laundry that had once been demon brain.
I vomited, twice, in my desperate attempt to crawl and claw my way out of the disgusting skull. I collapsed on my side next to Fabrizio and found him staring at me in dazed pain and disbelief. As if he’d woken up from a nightmare.
Despite the pain and exhaustion, I saw one other thing in the First Shepherd’s eyes.
Fear…of me.
I groaned, averting my eyes to ignore that look before I thought too hard about it. My fangs had thankfully snapped back into place at some point during my skully-go-round, so maybe Fabrizio hadn’t noticed. I grabbed his wrists to help him up and almost immediately vomited again as I felt a chunk of tendon or flesh crumble to dust and he let out a sharp hiss. He wheezed, panting desperately at the fresh pain I’d given him. “I’m so sorry,” I rasped, carefully setting them back down. I stared down at what had once been his strong, callused hands. There was more bone than flesh, and what little was left was carbonized muscle and dried or snapped tendons. Both of his hands were utterly destroyed. “Oh my god,” I whispered, fighting back my tears. Why hadn’t I hulked out sooner? “Stay strong, Fabrizio. I know someone who might be able to help.”
Trinity: Feathers and Fire Book 9 Page 14
